We Want You
by Shinryuu Uroborus
Summary: Sigma was defeated once again, and Red Alert had been reduced to ruins. The government now has to figure out what to do with Red Alert's lone survivor. [ONESHOT] Thanks to Hannaji for beta-reading this.


**We Want You**

"Well, that's it for the operation report."

The projector turns off as soon as the operator was given the cue to do so. The meeting leader turns to the participants, who had been sitting, staring at the screen until the projector was turned off. Some of them had to prevent their jaws from dropping.

"Well, ladies and gentlemen, what do you all think?" the meeting leader spoke up again. Soon afterwards, the people who had not been talking started discussing what they had seen. Meanwhile, the operator recorded everything-it is standard procedure that every important meeting is to be video-recorded for future reference.

"U... unbelievable."

"Of course it was-he killed his own fellow gang members. He did hesitate and show emotions before the fight, but that was only natural."

"It was his family. But for the sake of doing the right thing, he just retired them all."

"But we can't deny the impact of him defecting or Red Alert's crimes before this. That sudden defection was the worst. Central Highway was utterly destroyed. It's going to take months to restore it to its original state."

"And then the other now-retired Red Alert members had also done their share of damage to the environment as well. We certainly didn't need battleship debris floating in the ocean, or the forests being devastated again."

"Ahh, what was his name... Axl, wasn't it? Certainly an interesting reploid." one of the participants, who had been quiet the entire time, finally spoke up. "As we all know, he has shape-shifting abilities, doesn't he? That was what caused this whole chaos in the first place."

Knowing that the man who just spoke up is about to go into a long exposition, every head in the room turned towards him.

"Grove, Sir." the meeting leader addressed said man. "What are you implying?"

"Think about this, ladies and gentlemen... We have here a reploid who wants to serve us as a civil servant, who happens to have an ability with such weight, to the point it caused... All this. Sigma was after him, using his family members to accomplish it, but he held his ground and fought with the hunters, even killed his own surrogate father." Grove took a sip out of his glass. "Do we honestly want someone like this running around somewhere else?"

The room went silent before the other participants started speaking up.

"Well... None of us do. But we can't just let him off so easily. Red Alert was a significant player in the criminal underworld, and had committed many crimes. Drug trafficking, illegal arms trade, assassination..."

"And this Axl was a high-ranking member under them, meaning his hands are very dirty. We can't just let him go scot-free. He has to pay for his crimes somehow."

"But what are you going to do? Execute him? Grove has a point-he's one of a kind. You don't see a shape-shifting reploid every day. Not to mention he's practically begging to join the Hunters."

"We can give him a bit of punishment before we allow him to join."

"But it will probably make him change his mind."

"But he's so driven, I doubt he will."

"I certainly think that the risk isn't worth it. What if he defects again when it suits him?"

Grove cleared his throat, stopping the discussion. Everyone turned to him once again.

"What if we instantly accept him?"

The meeting leader instantly responded. "What- a decision that outrageous?! That's impossible! How would we explain ourselves? You're giving him too much credit!"

Grove looked at the leader in the eye. "Pierce, listen to me first. Like what has been said before, we don't want him running around anywhere else, nor do we want to risk him changing his mind shall we punish him. Yet he's so driven to join the hunters in spite of his origins. We have a former high-ranking member of Red Alert prostrating himself to join us, knowing how much damage he had caused, directly or indirectly, to society." Grove took another sip from his glass. "Ladies and gentlemen, what do you see in him as he is right now?"

"...Guilt." the meeting leader, Pierce, answered.

"Exactly." Grove smirked. "If we accept him now, he will be eternally grateful to us. He could have went off on his own or even start his own mercenary group. But no... He decided to turn himself in, join the Hunters. If this isn't an opportunity on a silver platter, I don't know what is. Think about this... We've seen that he is capable of feeling emotions. This includes gratefulness. Axl as he is right now, is in an extremely tight situation. He had caused so much damage to society, and knows that he will somehow be punished. If we lift the possibility of punishment and instantly give him his badge, would he even think of defecting?"

The other participants started murmuring amongst themselves. It wasn't long before they started nodding and murmuring in agreement, and then the youngest participant of the meeting spoke up.

"But Grove, Sir... This whole process... It's unfair! How can we speak for the people whose lives had been impacted by this whole Red Alert affair? So we're just going to give him his badge without giving him any punishment? This kind of reward is highly disproportionate! What kind of hard work has he done to earn such a thing?! We have to punish him severely-he's responsible, directly and indirectly, for too many things, we can't just..."

Grove glared at the participant. "Reef, you have no place to speak of such things. Do you think it was the A-grades in your degree that got you into this position? It was because of the favour the HR manager owed your mother that got you in. You're lucky to even be here, so don't you speak of hard work. Your parents will never tell you this, and they've made a terrible mistake-you've gotten too full of yourself. Get your head off the clouds. None of us in this room is completely clean anyways-we've ridden on injustice in one way or another.

Besides, he's killed his entire family to pay for his crimes and prevent more damage from being done. That is pure dedication. I admit that yes, many people have been impacted by Red Alert and its downfall. But no punishment will undo the damage, and we might risk earning his ire, dedicated as he is."

Reef slumped on his seat, his face filled with disbelief. Pierce glanced at him sympathetically before addressing the entire room.

"So, do we agree that we... Will just let Axl join the Maverick Hunters? No punishments, no restrictions?"

"Not just yet." another participant spoke up.

"What is it, Stone?" Pierce glanced at the woman.

"We're doing this to ensure Axl's undying loyalty to us, right? So that he will never go anywhere else?" Stone answered, "There has to be extra measures to keep him with us. We don't want another incident like what happened with X. We have to impose one condition on him: For him to never leave the Hunters, and that includes retirement."

Reef glanced at Stone, and weakly spoke to her. "You're... You mean you're going to make him work for life?!"

"He's a machine, what else is there for him in life?" Stone's cold, simple response stopped Reef from addressing the matter even further.

"So it is agreed, then." Pierce concluded. "We're going to allow Axl to join the Maverick Hunters, on one condition that he never leaves."

Everyone in the room nods in agreement. Pierce turns to the operator.

"Woods, remove any record of this meeting... We can't let word of this spread. We don't want anyone knowing the real reasons why we're allowing Axl to join so easily. Especially not Axl himself-I don't want to think about what would happen if..." Pierce glanced at the broken Reef. "...If he ever finds out. And we can't let anyone in the Hunters hear about this either. It will lead to bullying, which will likely lead in his desertion."

Woods nodded and immediately stopped recording the meeting, deleting the video file and emptying the recycle bin immediately.

"Let's just tell him... That his instant membership, without any punishments or restrictions other than him being not allowed to leave is from his hard work and dedication to doing the right thing."

* * *

 _ **AUTHOR'S NOTES:**_

 _This is my headcanon on why exactly Axl is accepted into the Maverick Hunters. No one ever goes into detail on how exactly he is accepted-did he get punished? Did the government/the agency that directly controls the Hunters get into long discussions, or is the discussion short? Given how unfair life can be, how manipulative people can be, whether it's beneficial or detrimental to us, this is how I think-the government would instantly award him the membership, to make him/manipulate him into being slavishly loyal to the Hunters._

 _The fine print may say that Axl's dedication to doing the right thing is recognized and thus he is awarded the privilege of instantly getting a membership in spite of his dirty track record, but what if it's a lie? And when there is no proof of the fact (?) that it's a lie, is it even a fact that the reason stated in the declaration of acceptance was a lie?_

 _After all, as the saying goes, "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"_

 _Thanks to Hannaji for beta-reading this fic.  
_


End file.
